Diaphragm

Your diaphragm is the invisible muscle that lets you breathe. It lies like an arched partition across your interior — between chest and abdomen, between lung and digestion, between what you show and what you feel. Every breath you take is a movement of this muscle. When it swings freely, you breathe deeply. When it is tense, you breathe shallowly — so shallowly that breath becomes scarce even when nothing external is taking it from you.

Most people only notice their diaphragm when it speaks up. A pulling beneath the ribs. A pressure that no organ examination can explain. A side stitch when walking that no longer resolves. Sometimes also a reflux, a bloating, the feeling that something between stomach and chest won't move forward. Or a chronic shortness of breath without asthma, without heart problems, without any medically detectable cause.